Rochester sports entrepreneur Andy Appleby’s investment in an English professional soccer team is on the cusp of paying off.

Derby County, owned since 2008 by a U.S. consortium headed by Appleby, will play the Queens Park Rangers at 10 a.m. Saturday EST at Wembley Stadium in London for promotion to the Premier League — and its lucrative TV money.

The game will air live in the U.S. on cable and satellite channel beIN Sports, which has the American broadcast rights to several overseas soccer leagues. The winner will be promoted to the Premier League and is guaranteed $200 million in new revenue via the 20-team soccer association’s enormous global television contracts.

Andy Appleby

The new cash would be reinvested in the club, Appleby said, not siphoned as profit by ownership. English soccer clubs usually operate at a loss, including Derby.

It wouldn’t be used for a mad spending spree on players, a sometimes financially disastrous strategy for newly promoted clubs.

“We have the basis of a Premier League squad, I don’t think we need to make hasty changes,” Derby CEO Sam Rush told BBC Sport on May 15. “We are looking to add to the group, but I don’t think we need to rush anything. If we can strengthen in due course then, of course, we will.”

Derby is in the promotion playoff after securing third place in the second-tier Football League Championship. The top two clubs in the league are automatically promoted to the Premier League (Leicester City and Burnley this season), and the next four clubs in the standings play for the third and final promotion slot.

Derby, known as The Rams, dispatched Brighton & Hove Albion in two playoff matches earlier this month for a spot in the game at Wembley. Queens Park beat Wigan Athletic to advance.

More than 38,000 Rams fans have bought tickets to Saturday’s game, according to a report today in the Derby Telegraph. More than 80,000 total are expected to attend.

Appleby, a former Detroit Pistons executive, is Derby County F.C. Ltd.’s chairman. He fronted the group that paid $100 million — and assumed $25 million in debt — for the club in January 2008. He is owner of Rochester-based General Sports and Entertainment LLC, a sports marketing and services firm he opened in 1998.

Derby last played in the Premier League, for one season, in 2007-08.

The Rams finished the 2013-14 regular season with 25 victories, 10 draws and 11 losses, good for 85 points in the standings — most in the club’s history.

Derby has averaged 25,000 fans per game this season at 33,597-seat iPro Stadium, good for second in the league. Premier League teams this season averaged 36,456 per game.

Derby, founded in 1884, plays a 46-game schedule. The Rams’ only top-level championships were in 1972 and 1975.

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